Bose Noice Canceling Headphones 700 Hands: Better Phone Calls

The new Bose Noise Canceling 700 headsets are not really the successor of the current QC35 II headphones. Instead, they add to Bose's line of noise-canceling headphones. An expensive addition. At $ 400, the 700 are worth $ 50 more than the QC35s. The price increase does not include any significant adjustments to the noise cancellation profile or headset audio profile. Instead, the big improvement, and the one Bose hopes you'll pay extra for, is superior audio fidelity when you're talking on the phone or using a digital assistant.

Generally, when you are on the phone in a noisy environment, such as in the middle of a city, the person on the other end hears ALL. My best friend can hear conversations on the other side of the park and this whirling van playing a crackling jingle when she's on the phone on the phone with me.

Apple does a decent job of reducing noise with AirPods, but most other wireless headphones, Bose's on-ear QC35 toddlers, do absolutely nothing to reduce noise.

To combat this problem, Bose added two more microphones out of the 700 addressed to the wearer's mouth. These microphones are supposed to clearly capture your voice while reducing the ambient noise around you. Bose showed the peculiarity in asking a representative to sit in a Starbucks in front of where we met. The representative first spoke to us via a camera and I heard the clear agreements of David Guetta and "Titanium" from Sia.

We then called his phone and he answered bearing the QC35. The song was still pretty clear in the background. Even with the voices of some men sitting nearby. It turns off the Qc35 and connects the 700, and instantly, everything is silent. No chatter. No singing. Nothing.

When he spoke, we could still hear some notes of the song, but deeply stifled so that his voice was clearer. The audio was not really worthy of a podcast, but it was much better than the QC35.

To further illustrate this apparent improvement, Bose installed two dummy heads wearing both pairs of headphones and connected to iPads that transcribe everything they said. A cacophony of noise was played as the little dummy heads played a voice that said the same thing. The 700 seemed to transcribe mainly what the model had said, while the QC35s were trying to transcribe both the dummy and the surrounding conversation at the same time, which caused quite a mess of gibberish.

For a controlled demo, it certainly sounded impressive – enough to spend $ 50 more? I'm not so sure. In particular, given the The QC35s are currently on sale for only $ 300 (the Sony WH-1000XM3 that sounds better also costs only $ 300).

Bose hopes to attract people to the 700, not only with an improved vocal experience, but with a new design. The 700 are more elegant than the QC35. The headband seems to cover the cans themselves and putting them in place does not move the earpieces in a way that will pinch your hair. The bifurcation of the earpieces also facilitates the search for touch controls. Instead of being in the center of the headset, they are firmly placed on one side of the headband and cover the usual functions such as volume control, track switching and call answering. The right headset also has physical buttons for connecting to Bluetooth and enabling a voice assistant (Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri are all supported).

The left atrium has a button to control the level of noise reduction. It is preset with three levels, of the type that stifles everything around you to the "0" setting, which passes audio from the outside world. Bose says that he worked hard to make the sound adjustment as natural as possible. in my quick test, it worked very well.

In addition to the long demonstration with the 700, Bose also had a new pair of in-ear headphones: the Bose Earbuds 500. Bose did not demonstrate the new headphones, which will replace the $ 200 SoundSport Free. Instead, he told me that they should be expected later this year. According to Mr. Bose, the pilots were moved to sit lower in your ear canal, which required rethinking the operation of the silicone tips, while hopefully improving the passive noise suppression and Sound enhancement.

Bose admitted that the versions planned for the beginning of next year: Bose 700 noise canceling headphones. These headphones will not only be truly wireless, but also active. An engineer boasted of having over 20 years of headphone design, it was the most advanced on which he had worked.

As with the Earbuds 500, we will not know if this is the case before we can try them. The 700 noise reduction headset will be shipped on June 30 for $ 400. The Earbuds 500 are expected later this year and the 700 noise canceling headphones will be launched next year.